Law, Social Standing and Racial Disparities in Imprisonment

Abstract

A central and recurring concern in the sociology of criminal law is racial disparity in imprisonment-blacks are much more likely than whites to be imprisoned for crimes. Sociological theories disagree over the sources of imprisonment disparity. Prior research has ignored the social, economic, and legal characteristics of states and regions of the country that may contribute to disparity. The present study finds differences in the social standing of blacks relative to whites that explain substantial and statistically significant variation in racial disparity in imprisonment across states after racial differences in involvement in crime are controlled. Blacks are more likely than whites to be imprisoned in states where the black population is a small percentage of the total population and predominantly urban. The implications of these findings for a structural theory of punishment are discussed. Over the past decade, racial and ethnic disparities in imprisonment have provoked national concern. While blacks and other racial minorities constitute a relatively small share of the general population, they make up a very large share of federal and state prison populations. In 1982, blacks made up 12 percent of the U.S. population and 48 percent of the prison population.' Such disparity continues to fuel debate about the treatment of minorities in the administration of criminal justice (Blumstein 1982; Hagan 1974a; Kieck 1981; Langan 1985). One writer described the debate as one of the most distressing and troublesome aspects of the operation of the criminal justice system in the United States (Blumstein 1982, p. 1259). *We thank Paul Burstein, Herbert Costner, Avery Guest, James Inverarity, Joe Weis, L. Wesley Wager, and two anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions. The project reported in this paper was sponsored by a grant from the Legislature of the State of Washington to the Institute for Public Policy, Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Washington. Address correspondence to George S. Bridges, Department of Sociology-DK40, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. ? 1988 The University of North Carolina Press